Twelfth Day

Its been twelve days now. Work has not started.  Over the last week or so, I met a lot of people who are in-charge of different departments within the information techology organization. Just the usual introductions and trying to understand what they are doing and how my future work will fit into the whole context etc etc

There is also a weird attendance policy in the company. You have to be in by 10.30 am and you can get out only by 6pm. If you came late or left early, you need to justify; else you lose your pay for the day. Stupidity I thought, only when I saw lines of people queuing up at 5.55pm; waiting to swipe their card out at 6pm and then rushing to catch the first shuttle to the station. I kinda get the feeling that a lot of people dont like this but I guess they cant help it.

Just like it happens in traditional Indian Companies, the Sir culture is present here as well. And being the north, rather west, they also add brother along with your name once in a while. Its becoming very difficult for me to switch to the respect format from a first name format. A friend of mine told me that eventually I will end up doing that - I mean start accepting the system and not questioning. Right now, its not like that. I definitely dont want to change; but lets see.

Evenings after office have been well spent. Vandhaan Vendraan and Mere Brother Ki Dulhan. I was glued to my seat watching Miss Kaif give that naughty wild smile - oooohhhh.. goose bumps and because she was playing a girl from London, she did all justice she could. Hopefully I will watch a Telugu movie during the weekend.

Engaeyum Eppothum

Recently I took a bus to Bangalore. The bus left Adyar at 10.30pm, picked up a few more in T.Nagar around 11pm and then reached this place called Silk Board in Bangalore by 4.15am. I was happy and shocked when I got off the bus. Happy because I reached Bangalore much early for the function that I was going to attend and shocked as I looked back on the journey time taken by the bus. I thought the bus driver was literally standing on the accelerator pedal all through the journey!!! Although this is a common phenomenon for buses that run between Chennai and Bangalore, its still an alarming fact that the operators dont have any control on speeding.

Engaeyum Eppothum, in some ways exposes us to one harsh reality - your life could be in the hands of a careless bus driver on the highway. You can always argue that what has to happen will definitely happen and if the bus driver is your chauffeur to hell/heaven its just a means. But what the hell.

As the movie opens, you witness a horrible accident between a private bus operator and SETC. As the scene unfolds, we are taken into the lives of different people who are travelling on both the buses. The lead characters are part of this bus journey and we learn more about their life when we go back a few months.

A girl(Ananya) from Trichy comes to interview for a job in Chennai, solicits help from a handsome looking stranger to help her get to the venue and also doubts his character all along their journey. I would have been convinced if the director actually chose a more interior town than Trichy to portray the girl's humble and innocent character. Trichy is quite cosmopolitan these days. Air Asia flies to Trichy directly from SE Asia!!! Anyways, through the journey, we obviously expect her to fall in love with the guy. The story is being told from the girl's perspective - a little different because I am always used to Parthiban's narration in a flashback. This was a welcome change. Almost 6 months later and love untold plus a failed desperate search to find the guy, she boards the private bus to Trichy from Chennai. The stranger who is in Trichy, boards the SETC bus to Chennai.

Jai and Anjali are in Trichy. Very middle class life - long working hours and earnings just enough to manage a decent living. Jai plays a very quiet character while Anjali is the extrovert - very strong and demanding. The director thought a lot about her character in this movie. Until the accident, every scene she is part of is a surprise package - we don't know why she is doing what she is doing and at the same time its quite hilarious. They board the SETC bus from Trichy to their hometown near Villupuram.

In between, we are also introduced to a few characters in the bus - a bunch of girls who are celebrating their tournament victory; a young college boy who happens to meet a beautiful girl also in the bus; a dad returning from Saudi to see his 5 yr old daughter who he hadnt seen since birth; a doting husband who actually comes to drop his wife but cannot leave her alone in the bus, so ends up taking the journey with her, and many other people who would be just like the one sitting near you in an inter-city bus. Conversations between the people sitting next to each other reminds us about random chats that you would have during a bus/train journey. In fact, the director makes it very realistic by not revealing passenger names.

This movie will not do well at the box-office. People will not like it, but I believe that it would send the message to a lot of people about highway incidents. 

The Monday that was

I got into the office quite early. Two trains and then a small ride in the auto I reached the gate. The corporate office is spread over 500 acres (more than 2 times the size of ISB and 1.5 times BITS Pilani). People actually take shuttle buses to go from one building to another. The building numbers are also a little weird. Building 9 is still under construction(I heard) whereas 1-8 and 10-12 are already functional. This company has many businesses in the same place. There is Oil and Gas, Retail, Technology, Life Sciences, Solar, Food Testing Lab, Textiles and what not (I guess I missed a few). But there are hardly 20000 employees here. There is a lot of open space and some of that is being used to maintain the greenery of the place. There is a horticulture department that takes care of the same.

I met the guy from the external consulting team who gave me an overview of the whole project. After that I spent some time reading old artifacts about the program. Then I met an old friend who had joined a similar team. We spent the next hour chatting up about our old job and what was happening here. It was quite a realization after I heard what he had to say. I am quite sure I will have enough opportunities to talk about the same and can add my experience as well. I met a few other people who had also joined the program in various other departments. A lot of people here speak Hindi right royally. A similar Tamil culture was evident in Cognizant as well. No wonder my friend once told me that its Chennai Technology Solutions and not Cognizant. I used to join a few lunch circles or gossip circles in Cognizant and yes, most of them spoke in Tamil. Matter of convenience I guess.

My first induction / training starts tomorrow. I checked out a few houses in Nerul. I decided that I need a furnished house as it did not make sense to buy all the electrical stuff here, because of the only fact that I dont know how many months I would last in this place (I will talk about that in my posts to come).

A new life?

Landing in Bombay one day before the immersion of the Ganapthy idol was not a bad idea but the day of the immersion was a big mess. The whole of Bombay felt like that main road in Triplicane.

Thank God, Madras is not this bad. Sunday evening here was a mess. Crackers bursting everywhere, policemen all the place, people dancing, processions and the icing on the cake was the rain. What a horrible evening it was. But I made most of my evening by choosing to do something more useful. I made a rush to FAME Cinemas in Vashi to watch Thala 50 - Mankatha. Ooooohhhhh!!! Whattay movie!!! I was impressed. The only thing that I didnt like about watching the movie or rather I deeply regret is the crowd. No one is shouting or whistling. Such an indecent and obedient audience. Of course they are all Tamilians. Dont know what Bombay has done to these people.

My Amex co-branded card with Kingfisher was so useful at the Chennai airport. I got a Priority Check-in and Priority Boarding allowance for my Gold Status. Also managed to get free lounge access. I helped myself with some really good food while I was there. Finally realizing the true benefit of using my Amex Card.

Bombay never sleeps. Very true, these guys where pulling the carts with the idol of the God all through the night. My guest house overlooks the main road and its probably the route in this locality that has been allocated for the procession. Every half hour I was woken up by drums. What a huge public nuisance!!! I hope I am not in Bombay for the next such procession.

Trains are always a pain here. For the next two weeks, I need to take two trains to work and its quite a bad experience. Its really disgusting to see someone crush your 60 EURO pure leather bag atleast 50 times during that one journey. Also while you are standing there, a few bald headed idiots would wipe their sweaty foreheads on your shirt while they rush to get down at the next station. No amount of cursing is going to help because these guys do this everyday. I was just one of today's victims. So from tomorrow, no bag.

House hunt has started. I looked at a few apartments today. Nothing great but still charging a bomb for the place. Thankfully this is New Bombay and hance its lesser than original Bombay. And on top of that you need to pay the brokerage as well.. which is sometimes 2 months rent. Ridiculous. What more.. if you renew the contract after one year, you need to pay the brokerage again for the next year. This stuff doesnt even happen in the UK!!!